Maldives and Thongs

As you’d know if you’ve taken the time to check me out proper-like I am totally a slave to fashion.

Those wonderful tees of mine don’t buy themselves, you know.

As such I rather enjoy wearing a thong or two around the bus. Mainly two, if I’m honest.

I only discovered the joy of thongs about ten years ago. My feet were constantly sore and I had fortnightly physio to try help them. Barefoot wasn’t an option. Turns out my pain must have been because I was sitting on my work stool wrong because it’s totally gone now I’ve been out of the bank for two years.

My love of thongs, however, has remained as strong as ever despite no longer being able to defend my reasoning to wear them to Tracey by citing medical necessity.

It’s the no socks thing I really love about them: one less to-do before leaving the house.

But as footwear for flying I must say I’m rather disappointed – and more than a little disgusted – in how thongs stack up. It is with the greatest of regrets I have to advise you thongs have proven to be less than ideal.

As you might have worked out by now from the odd ‘look at moi’ photo I’ve posted on Facie and Insta, Wednesday morning I headed off to the Maldives for a few days with a group of bloggers represented by the Good Funny Smart agency – they’re the guys who find me writing work.

You might know a couple of the bigger names in social media I’m here with – Kat who is The Organised Housewife, Lou & Jenny of Paging Fun Mums fame, Beth from Babymac, Sam from School Mum & Aldi Mum and, you won’t know him, the bloke who does all the heavy lifting looking about for the occasional sponsored option to keep the wheels turning on the bus, David. Also joining us are the lovely Kaili from Scoot and Jody from ClubMed to keep us for company and make sure we don’t break anything.

I genuinely love when we get the chance to spend face to face time together swapping stories, after which they ineveitably trying unsuccessfully to teach me the technical side of what I’m doing. They’re all wonderful and knowledgeable and bring a lot to the table. I tend to fetch coffees. That I’m standing at a kettle in paradise this year is amazing.

Now the more discerning of you might have noticed the one glaring omission from that list of names: Tracey. Unfortuantly, my wife has had to stay behind because it’s still a little close to her operation to justify the risk of something going wrong. She wants to stay within cooee of her favourite surgeon for another month still.

And before you go feeling too sorry for Tracey because she couldn’t be here, I rather suspect she might appreciate a week off, if you know what I mean.

Plus she won’t be tripping on my thongs in the bus hallway all the time. That’ll make up for it a bit I’m sure.

To get here we took two plane trips – Gold Coast Airport to Singapore, then Singapore to Maldives. And a half-hour jet boat dash across choppy waters.

In all, about 20 hours from locking one door and opening the next.

I dressed appropriately in my ‘I need my space’ tee, jeans and old thongs – because you don’t want to wear in a new pair doing something like this or you risk blisters. Old thongs are like t-shirts for feet.

Best of all they’re easy to kick off so you can stretch your toes. Something I try to do on flights because I find cramping to be distracting from my vital ‘keep a look out the window for other planes the pilot might have missed’ in-flight role.

Now I’ve never even heard of Scoot before this but I wouldn’t have taken them for a budget airline. The planes look like new inside and out so I suspect they aren’t very old, and there was just enough leg room to ditch the thongs and not cramp up. (Shameless plugging this shit but I’m in the Maldives so I think you’ll agree totes worth it).

But this ease of removing the thong from my person is the very problem with them on long, exhausting flights. You forget you’ve taken them off.

And because I forgot I’d taken them off I forgot to put them back on when I went to the loo, didn’t I.

And while I kept telling myself that was water from the sink I stepped in, I have my doubts.

I know you want to ewwww about now, but hold back enough for what’s coming.

So what’s the wrap on thongs on flights? Up to you but as nice as having bare feet is for a seven/eight hour flight I’m tossing up if I’ll take the risk again.

I mean I want to.

I probably will.

But I have concerns.

Like most decent Aussie blokes I’m still a huge thong fan.

And anyway, I have to bear in mind the alternative could be worse.

You see, the lady after me had clearly kicked her shoes off and was only wearing socks when she pushed past me and went in to the loo.

Okay, now you can use up the rest of your ewww.

Flying with Scoot to the Maldives. Because I can. Because they offered. Was going to crop this woman out of the nice photo of one of their planes at Singapore Airport but she’s giving me such a wonderful ‘what the eff are you doing?’ face I decided to keep her in.Poor dear fell asleep. Tuckered out. I don’t think she said a word the whole flight.Discovered a new precious at Singapore Airport. Chicken porridge. It’s totally a thing.Tracey was feeling refreshed from her nap and ready to tackle the final shorter legs to ClubMed Kani.Tracey! Stop it! There’ll be time enough for that later, you minx.Jetboated the last thirty minutes. Was totally relaxed as we thumped and hooned our way between ships and small islands….right up until the captain turned a light on so he could see what was in front of him, which only served to highlight the fact he hadn’t had it on before this. Then he did the unthinkable. He turned it off again. From then on I was pretty much on the edge of my seat.‘We’ have arrived in the most romantic place on Earth. Can’t wait to check it out in the morning. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s deadset gorgeous. Tracey’s speachless. Now where’s that photo with the tongue.

Raising a family on little more than laughs

HELP WANTED: This post is not sponsored, although Scoot & ClubMed have kindly put up the trip for us But the one below is sponsored. Please support our big beautiful family by simply clicking over and checking it out (click on the photo below).